Lovely Lantern Lights

I expected rain to fall, maybe like last year, probably worse. The week was weird weather-wise after all. I made it a point to bring my umbrella, for Getsurikai’s sake. Thank heavens I had no need for it.

I arrived at UP late by my standards. For the past three years, I’d usually arrive before lunch then hang out for some hours, reading a book I brought, until my friends start texting me, asking where in UP am I. I’d do that to avoid being hassled by the traffic caused by the Parade. For some reason the traffic-hassle didn’t give me enough incentive to get-up early this year. I was late but it was a nice start to the adventure as I got an opportunity to get a before-the-show feel for the event.

Camera-Shy Horse

This horse is too camera-shy. Everytime I’d point my lens at him he’d turn his head the other way. Maybe he’s proffering me his best angle? Maybe he thinks my lens is some kind of a laser cannon*? This is the best of him I got: snout complete with matching calesa.

I was happily shooting around Oblation Plaza when I saw our ROTC squad advancing towards Palma Hall. I remembered that they will be one of the first parties to parade. So I hurriedly ended my little photoshoot, reasoning with myself that I need to conserve batteries as I don’t have any spare.

But not long after, the beauty of the Carillion took me in…

Hiding

The UP Carillion

We decided to station ourselves in front of Melchor Hall being that it is at the last leg of the Parade. Last leg == night time (eventually) == more awesome for the lovely lantern lights.

That said, with all my hurrying, we still had lots of idle time when our group was finally completed. Idle time + SLR/SLT camera =

And here I'm the camera man!

Friends with me

…rotating camera men!

Cute Dog

And the attention of cuteness!

The Parade started with UP Offices. I saw some personal acquaintances like…

UP President Alfredo Pascual

UP President Alfredo Pascual

Okay. I kid. I saw some personal acquaintances like…

The CRS Team

The CRS team, most of which are people from DCS.

Come to think of it, the deeper I got into the CS curriculum (and knew more teachers/people from the Department), the better my fate during batch runs became. Hmmmm….

And then came the UP ROTC in their distinct guardia civil outfit,

Inside their Ranks
I wonder, if a lightning storm ensues, will those hats act like lightning rods? Are the wearers safe from brain-frying and related phenomena?

Ironically followed by College of Arts and Letters float honoring Rizal and the Revolution,

 

Higanteng Rizal

Blast from the Past

Above pictured is Sir Wystan de la Peña, head of the Department of European Languages and my Professor in a GE coded European Languages 50 (EL 50). Take that course under him. I personally learned a lot from Señor de la Peña’s lectures. It is one of the most worthwhile courses I ever took.

Macario Sakay

Pagpupugay

The parade was scattered with awesomazing lanterns (duh!) and acquaintances that it is pointless to just blah on with words. Visual overload here we go!

Ian Tisang

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Jennica Reyes

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Rowena Sheila Uddin

With Ivan Marcelo

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Nikki Costales

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The Heart of a Star

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Elaine Diaz

Cher Tuazon

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Like last year, there were gaps in the Parade, most likely caused by people like yours truly who are so keen on taking pictures. And it was starting to get dark. Perfect for pictures like these…

Melchor Hall, in Lights

Lighted Street

Night Settling

At this point, I learned/realized a few things in photography.

  • You really can’t do much if a scene’s lighting is poor to begin with. Not unless you have your own lighting equipment. But (a) I don’t have that and (b) that looks too out-of-place, space-taking, and inconsiderate for an event like the Lantern Parade.
  • Unlike a point-and-shoot’s flash, which fires the lights straight at your subject, an SLR fires flash upwards, assuming there is a ceiling to bounce the light downwards, diffused. This results to a better effect/less glare. There obviously isn’t a ceiling equivalent in outdoors, Lanter Parade set-up. I had to use my hands to direct the flash to my subjects (hood it over the flash like a “ceiling” which will quickly catch the lights and bounce it towards your subject). Thank goodness I realized this quickly.

So, as it was getting dark at this point, it became harder to get decent shots. Lighting was no longer on my side as I was already relying on flash. Otherwise, it’d be too dark or too orange depending on where I decide to shoot.

Wall-E

The DCS contingent

Above pictured is Eng’g’s Wall-E, one of our lanterns, and the DCS/Cursor contingent of the Parade. Like last year, Eng’g scored with a particularly awesomazing lantern followed by a—wait for it—boring march of Eng’g orgs and banners. My sister, who majors in Broadcast Communication, likens it to dead air i.e., awkward and should-be-avoided pauses in radio productions. Unlike the last three years though, they, at least, weren’t wearing orange. Plus points for the fashion factor!

Belly Dancers 1

Belly Dancers 2

The Fire

I took this shot from one of the torches of the Beta Sigma frat men. Their first number was the human chain/snake which I believe is part of their initiation rights. Even if it is my second time seeing this, it was still kind of chilling especially with their chant. I heard someone (was he from βσ?) call their second part kata which is the Karate equivalent of Taekwondo’s poomsae or forms. While their formation and synchronicity might look watch-worthy, it didn’t really catch my attention (maybe ’cause I’ve seen better during my TKD days). So, my eyes were wandering off to better photo-ops, their torch flames in particular. It, however, amuses me that Beta Sigma has their own blend of martial arts.

A few more lanterns and it was finally the turn of my most anticipated college ever. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the ever-fine stars of our lantern show, the College of Fine Arts.

The College of Fine Stars

Warning: Awesomeness follows.

'Till We Have Horses

The Lone Ranger

Starbakz Kapeh

Pairy Queen?

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Inuman Tayo

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Mecha

Pandanggo Yo'

Darna

Darna

Narda

Lola Basyang (and Angry Birds)

Wa-PAKman

Memefaces

Le Meme Face

Gundam!

ROCK ON!!!

Night of the Living Art

HOLLOW!

Ang Babae sa Septic Tank

Mulawin

VLC Media Player

And of course, the night wouldn’t be complete without fireworks. It is unfortunate that an untoward incident happened in this year’s fireworks. We were only a few meters away from the fireworks fence when it happened and we saw those wayward fireworks shoot. Here is the statement of UP Diliman’s Chancellor regarding the incident.

Electrifying Sun

Fire Circles

Fire Disperses

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Whirling Fire

Radial

Fields of Fire

Judging by the number of pictures in this post, I’d say that I’ve really had a good time with my camera this Parade. I even exceeded my 300MB monthly upload limit at Flickr that I had to hijack on a new account to fit all these shots in!

That’s all for now. Hope you have a Merry Christmas! ~Chad

*This imagery was inspired by an episode of Pokemon, Bulbasaur-Charmander-Squirtle(-Pikachu!) era. Brock was making rice cakes when Ash noticed a camera lens (wanting to take a picture of Pikachu) appear from behind some bushes. He over-reacted, imagining it to fire a laser projectile of sorts, and ruined their little rice cake picnic. I’ve never been able to shake that episode from my mind since I watched it as a kid.

The Last One, Hopefully

Second semesters. You’ve always held a special place in my heart for being more enjoyable and memorable. For some reason, despite having managed my time better, I felt so tired and exhausted after last semester that all-break long I didn’t do anything as originally planned. I had to recharge by doing nothing and watching my first concert ever, starred by the Jason Mraz.

An amusing aspect of this second semester is how I encounter my past teachers. Imagine casually meeting your first math teacher in college ever, remembering that his subject was your baptism by fire, and wondering if he remembers you or if you should maybe greet or wave or something. Even after Math 17 I didn’t really become that awesome in math. But, if anything, Math 17 gave me the tenacity I’d use during those countless times I went on the brink of failure. I still have to encounter a non-theoretical application of the complex plane, numeric progressions, and root finding but Math 17 was most worthwhile taking even if just for the mindset I gained.

It’s only been four years and yet it all seems so long. Maybe it’s because I’ve actually had eight sets of subjects just for the past four years? And that’s not counting my summer semesters.

Another amusement: my candidate last semester is host to a number of firsts in my life. It is my first underloaded semester, being that all those summers spent in school has finally paid off and I’m only 13 units away from my diploma (15 to around 21 is the range of normal load, variable depending on whether you have laboratory units). But wait, no, it is also my first semester taking a Master’s class. Out of curiousity and a desire not to slack off/underload, I added a further three units to the missing 13 units of my undergraduate curriculum.

I’m closer than ever to closing this volume of my life, but it’s not a clear coast yet. I still have an obstacle course and a thesis to finish. But hey I’m already here. So just you wait.

See you!

P.S. Greet the blog a happy birthday! It’s been five years!

Photograph of the Month: Reach Up to Paradise

Reach Up to Paradise

Why am I a photoblog all of a sudden? Read about it here.

Ah Paradise…I shall be with you soon. Just give me time to kick the hell out of the coming hell weeks…

There is one productivity trick that I’ve learned from my internship which I’ve continued to apply even well after I’m out of it: plan ahead not what you want to do but what you want to achieve. This has been largely responsible why the past midterm season went by me without much hassle on my part. Ever since my internship, I’ve started my weeks planning ahead what I want to achieve and then tallying myself. I try to achieve at least 70% of the goals I set weekly and I’m pretty good at it; I usually get my 70% done, until recently, that is.

But before I proceed telling you about what’s been keeping me busy this past few weeks, allow me to backtrack a little and relate an interesting event I forgot to relate and that happened all because of my birthday last month. In an age where Facebook has kindly been reminding everyone of everyone else’s birthday, I pusposedly set my account to tell no one when my birthday is. As I expected, I didn’t get much greetings on my birthday. I had maybe around 3, all coming in at the last minute of August 8, two through Facebook and one via text message. And then the next few days became quite amusing, as people learned that I celebrated my birthday on the 8th. People wrote me uber-interesting greetings, starkly personal, if I may say, even if not by Facebook standards, going well up to a week after my actual birthday. True enough, I didn’t get as much greetings than if I allowed my birthday alarm to ring but I’m pretty sure that I got the better deal by receiving messages that is not the generic “Happy Birthday Chad! <maybe insert smiley here>”.

Anyway…so, what I’ve been up to. These past few weeks, my 70%-goal-achievement productivity saw a sharp drop as I found myself alternating only between two interesting projects: my thesis and my EEE8 project. This is my second take on EEE8; I don’t think I was able to tell the blog that I failed it last year largely because it was eclipsed by more personal failures, which took center stage in my posts. Back then, I never thought I’d ever even be remotely interested in breadboards, integrated circuits, and wires. But well, here I am, thinking of how can I build a robot to automate the cleaning process of my room.

As for my thesis, I must admit that one of the many reasons I wanted to join UPD’s Computer Vision and Machine Intelligence Group (CVMIG) was because I knew that I’d probably be working on image processing, which was, back in high school my idea of the pinnacle of programming. Well I got my wish, but that is not to say that I am not having a hard time in the task set to us. For some weeks now, I’ve been contemplating over the Gabor filter and I must say that I’m still pretty far from what I hope I’ve achieved with it already.

Well, that’s all for now. Wish me luck and see you soon in Paradise, wherever or whatever that is…~Your Skymeister.

heaven

Photograph of the Month: Futsal

Want to Play

Why am I a photoblog all of a sudden? Read about it here.

And for my last PE class I took up Futsal, a.k.a, futbol de salon (not futbol sa loob), or, in plain English, indoor footbal. Incidentally, this is also my only PE which is a team sport or a ball game, my other three being Archery, Fencing, and Taekwondo, taken in that order.

Some trivia: When some people hear the word Football what comes to mind are players like this,

football_zombie
From http://images.wikia.com/plantsvszombies/images/1/1a/FOOTBALL.jpg

save that they are most likely college-age, with a muscular build, and hungers for burgers and not brains. Well people, that is American Football. America, to avoid confusion, calls that sport in which Spain prevailed in last year’s World Cup Soccer. Elsewhere it is Football and…uh…Handegg?

Because I really can’t make a ball out of that egg-shaped pork-skin, I’ll be with the rest of the world in this matter and say Spain won in the Football World Cup.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to play Football. I remember kicking softdrink tin cans with friends way back in elementary, being that we had no Football equipment and that softdrink tin cans were just perfect in weight if not in shape. Even as relatives and teachers thought I’d be playing Basketball due to my growth spurt when I was young, I kept dreaming of green fields and goals.

My elementary school had no varsity teams. So, when I moved to a new school for high school, I really looked forward to playing a sport. But alas, the high school I moved to had varsity teams, alright, but not Football. Our space was pretty cramped, you see, that sometimes even the Basketball team had to practice half-court since the other half was being shared between two other sports (giving them a quarter-court’s share each).

And I thought I’d end up in Basketball finally, and make my teachers and relatives happy for a prediction-turned-right. But then, my high school had Taekwondo. I trained for the whole four years of my high school.

Those four years weren’t exactly the most injury-free but they were definitely character-forming. It’s thanks to Taekwondo that I developed a habit for sports and working out. It also taught me how to push-through with what I want to achieve and to give my 110% in the things I do.

Come college, I knew that I wouldn’t have enough time to practice a sport regularly. I had to stop at 2nd grade brown belt. My need for some physical action was filled in by trying out various sports (as outlined by the PEs I took) and other activities (remember rappel?).

And now, Futsal. It isn’t exactly played on green fields but hey it’s got goals and play is football-like enough.

What about you, played any sport recently? *wink*

 

Photograph(s) of the Month: Roses

Wallflower

Why am I a photoblog all of a sudden? Read about it here.

And for my first “Photograph of the Month” blog I give you roses.

They’re my mom’s. I think she acquired them around mid-month. Of course, my first instinct was to jump in and take pictures. Yay.

I know that roses—like books, butterflies, and hearts—are fragile things but I never knew that they are that delicate that it is quite a task keeping them alive. I don’t know much about gardening but my mom said something along the lines of, “I hope I can make them last”. That just gave me an idea on how fragile they can be.

Withering

Why are fragile things often beautiful? Or is it the other way around, that those which are beautiful are fragile? Roses, books, butterflies, hearts—or why I’m so sure the world is beautiful.

For next month, I guess I’ll find something moving, throw in a person or two in the frame maybe. If you head over to my DeviantArt you’ll see lot’s of flower pics in there. I find flowers that beautiful that I can’t stop myself from taking pictures when I see some interesting ones—which scares me a bit. I guess it’s every artist’s fear that he has ran out of new ideas to try, that his recurring themes are no more than reused cliche. Where do you draw the line between recurring themes and loss of fresh ideas?

But hey this post is supposed to be happy. In other news, I’m no longer doing my thesis/special problem alone. I’m with two ladies and we’re working on Porites a genus of corals. More about the problem as we progress. Yee-ha.

(According to Sir Pros, our adviser, thesis is, by definition, something you do alone. But for all intents and purposes, our special problem, usually done in pairs or in threes even in other labs, can be considered a thesis.)

‘Till next month! ~The Chad Estioco